Bev, Playing devils advocate is always a dangerous game.
If we follow your line of reasoning, you are basically saying that because you don't have any personal interest in the CCA (i.e. you get nothing out of it for yourself) you don't care? As an artist (and member of the human race) do you not feel any sense of collective social responsibility? Or are you just perpetuating the common perception of the artist as selfish and egotistical individual. The artist says "look at me!", look what i can do!" not "what can I do for you?", "how can we help each other out of this mess?". Anyway..that is another matter and one for future fireside chats. So lets get back to the CCA In the first instance : I don't think it is unreasonable to expect some sort of ethical standards from 'cultural' organisations (i.e. organisations that purport to enrich the culture of a city or country for everyone regarldess of age/colour/sex). What if the BNP or Conservative Party wanted to rent out the CCA? Secondly : I think this issue is about collective responsibility. Chris Byrne said that we are all culpable in a way and that is true. We are all connected by a common bond. We all rub shoulders on this planet and the person who served coffee to the MOD bods at the CCA is just as guilty as the airman who drops the bomb. The same way if we buy Nike trainers we are guilty of supporting child labour in Asia Also I think this issue has provoked such debate as most of us have a deep disdain for the activities of the MOD. Ultimately the MOD is a death industry. Somewhere down the line innocent people will die or be maimed from decisions that were made at the CCA. Whether this is in Iraq, Israel or in Africa (Britain exports 60 millions pounds of arms to Africa every year). How do to change things? I think it can be done incrementally by what Proudhon called 'propaganda by deed'. His analogy was that change comes not like a violent revolution which akin to a volcano explodes with great force and then dies quickly, but like the waters of an underground lake that slowly seeps through porous rock to flood the surface. So, I think an open letter or some sort of public debate is a good step forward. Just some thoughts "Don't forget the little criminals, so they change sides and pretend nothing ever happened" - slogan of the White Rose (anti Nazi movement) Klaus Oldanburg ----- Original Message ----- From: Beverley Hood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, October 08, 2002 10:51 AM Subject: Re: <ambit> dinnertime > So it seems that the cca has conference facilities, which they let out for > private events and this is aparently unrestricted (but perhaps there are > organisations which they would not hire out to...who I wonder?). > > I must say I was surprised to hear that the MOD was holding a conference at > the cca but if the hire of rooms is unrestricted then why not, anyone can > use it. Is the point here that the cca should be restricting the use of > their conference spaces? In my naivity I would have imagined these spaces > were created for and used by Cultural bodies/organisations, which I'm sure > they are to some extent but obviously not exclusively. > > I guess this is the case of a fancy re-vamped arts space which cannot be > maintained (financially) by it's main agenda to be a site of cultural > activity and therefore has other avenues to bring in revenue. > > In the end though I feel less idealistic about the cca and all other art > institutions than others obviously do on the list. For example I don't have > any control over their art programme, nor does it necessarily reflect my > practice or interests, so why would I expect any over the way they rent > their spaces to private organisations. > > Being a bit of a devil's advocate... > Bev > ------------------------------------------------- a m b i t : networking media arts in scotland post: [EMAIL PROTECTED] archive: http://www.mediascot.org/ambit info: send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and write "info ambit" in the message body -------------------------------------------------
